


It's Not Raining On Prom Night (But My Hair's Still A Mess).

by GhostOfDorothyStreet



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Gen, Harvey is a friend to small drunks in need, Oswald has never not been a mess, Pre-Series, rookie Harvey, skipping your prom to drink stolen whiskey, teen Oswald
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-30 22:18:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12662559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostOfDorothyStreet/pseuds/GhostOfDorothyStreet
Summary: Several years pre-series, beat cop Harvey has a chance meeting with high school senior Oswald...





	It's Not Raining On Prom Night (But My Hair's Still A Mess).

**Author's Note:**

> For some reason I couldn't get the idea of Oswald's first run in with the law involving Harvey out of my head, and thus this fic was born...

As grim and godawful as the dock shift was, Harvey knew that for once it beat being on the inner city shift. It was the height of prom season, and there was nothing worse than dealing with teenagers drunk on lite beer and box wine. Overdressed, overconfident, and hopped up on hormones. The guys from Alpha team were welcome to them.

He shivered slightly in his windbreaker, drawing in his shoulders and clenching his left hand in his pocket. His other hand held a flashlight; a heavy, dented thing, with chips and gouges in the black paint from where it had been used as a club by its previous owner. He swept it in a lazy arc in front of him, the beam cutting through the darkness and lighting up the dirty concrete and rusted metal. Cranes towered overhead, and huge, hulking shipping crates loomed in the dark. Familiar enough scenery.

It was on the returning arc that he noticed something that didn’t belong.

Near the water’s edge stood an old bench, rusted and tarnished with lichen encrusted wood. What Harvey’s torch had picked up was an indistinct dark shape sprawled across it. A shape that a glimmer of reflected light told him was wearing shoes.

He sighed heavily, bracing himself. Just his freaking luck he’d run into something like this. He called out, his voice unnaturally loud in the cold, still air.

“Hey!”

The shape made a squeaking noise and rolled off the bench with a thump and a tinkle of glass. Not a corpse then, that was a plus.

He strode over, dust and grit crunching beneath his feet. He nudged the figure sprawled on the ground with the tip of one boot and it let out a noise somewhere between a groan and a whimper before turning over onto its back.

Or rather his back, as Harvey could more clearly see now.

The guy was small, and young looking; If he had to guess, Harvey would have put him at 17 or 18, tops. He was dressed in a fancy suit that looked a little big for him and was doing a piss poor job of hiding how scrawny he was, and his pale, pointed face had a sickly green cast to it. The near empty bottle of scotch that had rolled under the bench probably had something to do with that.

“You doin’ okay there, kid?”

He crouched down next to the young man, bracing a hand against the bench.

“Looks like you’ve had quite a night.”

The young man opened one pale, bleary eyed and grimaced up at Harvey. He gave a pained sounding moan and dragged a hand over his face, smearing eyeliner down his cheeks in the process. When he spoke, his voice was slurred, with a shrill whining edge.

“No… You…you can’t prove anything.”

Harvey quirked an eyebrow.

“Now, that sounds a hell of a lot like something a guy who’d done something less than legally upstanding would say. You wanna tell me where you got the booze from?”

The guy’s other eye popped open at that, and he sat up quickly. Too quickly, judging by the nauseated look that washed over his face. He swayed slightly, and might have toppled sideways and dangerously close to the edge had Harvey not reached out and grabbed him by his lapels.

“Hey, hey, take it easy there, kid,” he dipped his head down and looked the young man in the eye, having to snake his head slightly to keep up with the way the guy was still swaying like a branch in a high wind. “You got a name?”

It seemed to take the kid a few moments to process what he’d been asked, and when he eventually answered it was with a haughty tone and expression that were so out of place given the state of him that Harvey struggled not to laugh.

“Oswald Cobblepot.”

“…Okay. Oswald Cobblepot. I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt on that being a real name,” he half lifted the kid to his feet, hardly a struggle given how tiny he was, “I’m afraid you’re gonna have to come with me.”

“No… no, you can’t…”

“I can, and I’m gonna,” he put an arm around Cobblepot’s middle, leading him towards where his car was parked, “It’s a night in the drunk tank for you, kiddo, just hope you won’t need your stomach pumped.”

Despite his initial protests, all the fight seemed to go out of Cobblepot at that point. Though the way he slumped and became dead weight in Harvey’s arms wasn’t that much of an improvement.

As Harvey attempted to pour him into the back of the squad car, a hand on his head to stop him banging his head on the doorframe, Cobblepot suddenly sprung back to life like a haunted marionette, all flailing limbs and insistent hands.

“Hey! Watch it kid…”

He was cut off by Cobblepot pressing a clammy hand to his mouth in a clumsy attempt to silence him.

“Don’t…” he said, eyes fever bright, “Don’t tell my mother.”

Harvey seized his wrist, peeling his hand away with a grimace.

“Hate to break it to ya, pal, but your mom’s gonna find out when we call her to come pick you up in the morning.”

“Not about that,” Cobblepot gave him a look like Harvey was the one being absurd, but when he continued it was in a tone so sad and pathetic that Harvey couldn’t help but feel bad for him, “I mean… don’t tell her that I didn’t go to the prom. She was so happy… she took photos…”

Harvey patted him gingerly on the shoulder, giving him a gentle push into the back seat and hoping against hope that the guy didn’t throw up on the upholstery – the car smelled bad enough as it was. By the way they were half way back to the station, Cobblepot was sound asleep and snoring quietly, occasionally murmuring incoherently.

*** 

The next morning, it became abundantly clear what Cobblepot had been so worried about the night before, as the station was hit by a small hurricane of wild blonde curls and vintage lace, wittering in a vaguely European accent about her sweet little boy. Harvey was willing to bet that the pained expression on Cobblepot’s face was only partly down to the monster hangover he was nursing.

“Nothing to worry about, Ma’am,” he said, in his most reassuring voice, “Your boy uh, he just had a little too much fun at the prom last night is all.”

He caught Cobblepot’s eye and gave him a sly wink, getting a thankful, if somewhat wobbly, smile in response, as Mama Cobblepot dragged her son out of the station. He chuckled to himself as snatches of conversation drifted back towards him from the exit – Cobblepot insisting that no, there hadn’t been any girls involved, and his mother’s voice morphing from an accusatory tone to a mildly proud one that her boy had been the life and soul of the party.

Between that and finding out that the station's resident asshole, Officer Johannsen from Alpha team, had had three drunk seniors throw up on him over the course of the evening the night before, it really hadn't been that bad a shift.


End file.
